What We’re Reading This Week Across the Web (Through Jan 10)

ROBOTS: The Robotification of Society is ComingRhett Allain | WIRED“The best plan is to educate in a way that is perpendicular to the direction of robotification….at first robots will take over simple things. So, we shouldn’t educate people to focus on simple things – robots will do those jobs. However, this also means that we shouldn’t be ‘job training’ in education – especially in higher education.”

SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY: Tech giants quietly investing in Synthetic BiologySynBiology.co.uk“In the near future, many everyday products will be created from living systems. That includes easy-to-imagine products such as fuels and foods and eyebrow-raising products such as electrical wires and car tires.”

SPACE: 2014’s launch tally highest in two decadesStephen Clark | Spaceflight Now“There were more successful space launches in 2014 than in any year since 1992, with Russia, the United States and China responsible for more than 80 percent of global launch activity.”

MEDIA: For the Indie Writers of Amazon, It’s Publish or PerishDavid Streitfeld | The New York Times“Kindle Unlimited is pushing Ms. Le Veque in the opposite direction. She is getting more popular by becoming less expensive, which is making her more popular. She is the embodiment of Amazon’s argument that ‘lowering e-book prices will help — not hurt — the reading culture.'”

GENETICS: Gene Editing Will Change Everything—Just Not All at One TimeHarry Glorikian | Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News“While human therapeutic applications of gene editing steal the limelight, there are other sectors, including agriculture and specialty chemicals, in which the technology has advanced beyond the laboratory into product development and even onto the market.”

FUTURE OF WORK: Why the Tech Elite Is Getting Behind Universal Basic IncomeNathan Schneider | VICE“‘We are at the beginning of the time where machines will do a lot of the things humans have traditionally done…how do you avoid a massive bifurcation of society into those who have wealth and those who don’t?'”

SCIENCE FICTION: How the Year 2015 Is Depicted in Science FictionBecky Ferreira | Motherboard“All of these 2015 stories involve humans confronting an intelligence that resembles us, but is also so fundamentally different that conflicts are bound to occur…But if there is one overarching theme to 2015 as a setting, it’s that ‘human-ish’ beings—be they robots, aliens, or a time-distorting teenagers—are destined to threaten the lives of ‘real humans,’ even if they are protagonists.”